Barack Obama played to a sold-out crowd last night in SoDo. His stump speech may have been familiar to those following the presidential race. I'm sure that hardly mattered to the smitten. But I was struck by this passage in Ralph Thomas' story on the event in this morning's paper.

Farther back in line, Monique Duluoz, of Kent, was wearing an "Obama Mama" T-shirt and a pin that read, "Mommy make the scary Republican go away."

Duluoz said she would be happy with Obama or Clinton as president.

"I think she's going to take it," Duluoz said of Clinton. "But I'm hoping she'll ask him to be her VP [vice president]. I think together they could really rock it."

What does it mean to Obama's campaign that a woman willing to stand in line and deck herself out in Obama-wear has already given up on the candidate's chances to win the top slot? Obama is surging in the polls, particularly those that match him up against potential general election Republican opponents. But yet even Obama's fans remain unconvinced that he can beat Clinton. And it's not just Duluoz. I heard the same thing from others when Obama was here in June. And I hear it from friends and others who say they like Obama best but figure someone else, usually Clinton, will win the nomination.

In an interview with Joel Connelly Tuesday, Obama said he disregards the conventional wisdom about his campaign.

"It was over," Obama laughed, referring to commentators' early fall take on the Democratic presidential race. Hillary hagiography ran through The Washington Post and the U.S. capital's commentocracy.

"I don't believe the punditry when we are down, or the hype when we are up," he added.

Eli Sanders, just back from Iowa for The Stranger, wrote a brief recap of the Obama event last night and had this bit of reality for Seattle:

The crowd in Des Moines, Iowa — Des Moines, Iowa — was way, way more diverse than the crowd tonight at the Showbox.

A Slog commenter says a more exclusive fundraiser was more diverse:

I was at the Pier 66 fund raising event at 6:30pm. I'm black and I was more surprised to see more blacks at that event than what you probably saw at the Showbox.